AfriGeneas Free Persons of Color Forum

I hope this, at least, begins to answer your questions or give you a sense of what the deal was (excerpted from the introduction):

"...Some of the slave purchases were caused not by the bond of kinship but by humanitarianism. free blacks of benevolent persuasion sometimes used their own money to purchase slaves with the intent of emancipating them. However, many black masters did not intend to manumit their slaves and viewed the institution of slavery as a source of labor to be exploited for their own benefit. Indeed, free blacks not only used the labor of slaves to till the soil of their farms and plantations but also purchased slaves to work in their businesses as skilled and unskilled laborers. Others bought slaves to be hired out.

These black masters hired out their slaves to non-slaveowners and appropriated the proceeds from the labor of slaves to help support themselves. whatever the reasons may have been to stimulate free blacks to acquire slave property, the system of American slavery was a universal institution in which even Afro-Americans became slaveowners and occasionally ascended to the ranks of large slaveowning planters.

[The author references "Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830", by Carter G. Woodson; "The Forgotten People: Free People Of Color in New Orleans 1850-1870, by David Rankin (Ph.D, dissertation, John Hopkins University,1976); "Free Black Owners of Slaves", by R. Halliburton, Jr.,1976]

I think the book is worth buying, if you can find it. I know that I'll probably keep renewing until I can find a copy.

I initially picked it up for the data and 'index'. Now, thanks to this forum, I need to read all of it's 286 pages.